The Headsman (21 page)

Dennis Delury came around the corner, and when he saw Jud the young officer said he’d been in the kitchen with Mrs. Ballard. Jud told him to go back and stay with her; he’d be in there later.

Jud heard a car drive up, and looking out the window saw Doc Reinholtz leave his sedan and approach the house. Just behind the coroner came an ambulance.

Reinholtz shook his head when he greeted Jud. He shook it again when he saw the body. Then he put his bag down onto the floor and took off his overcoat and his hat and dropped them onto a chair before kneeling beside Ballard’s corpse.

“He another one of your patients, Doc?” Jud asked.

Reinholtz sighed. “Looked after him and Ethel for years.”

“Did you treat him for anything lately?”

“No.”

“How was his health in general?”

“I’d say fairly good. Oh, he had a few problems. Bad back, for one thing. And a little rheumatism now and then, ’specially in wet weather.”

“But nothing serious?”

“Nothing serious enough to make him blow his head off, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I mean,” Jud said.

The front door opened and two ambulance attendants with heavy jackets over their whites came into the room and stood gaping at the mess.

“I’ll just be a few minutes here,” Reinholtz said to them.

He turned back to Jud. “Whatever was bothering him wasn’t his health. If there was anybody in the family I’d say might have done something like this, it would have been Ethel, not Art. She’s got a kidney problem that gives her a lot of pain. You talk to her yet?”

“No. I’m gonna do that now.”

“All right. When I’m through here I’ll look in on her.”

“They have any family around here, do you know?”

“Nope. The children are all grown with kids of their own, all of ’em living out of state. I think Ethel has a sister, though. I’ll call her, let her know.”

“Okay,” Jud said. “I’ll go see how Ethel’s doing.” He left the room.

Ethel Ballard was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee with Delury. She was wearing a pink flannel robe. In stature, Art’s widow was the opposite of her late husband. She was heavy, almost obese, but her features were small and childlike. Even her hair seemed incongruous; its white strands had been tinted blue.

She looked up when he walked into the kitchen. “Hello, Jud.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Ethel, I’m sorry.”

“Ayuh. There’s a fresh pot of coffee there on the stove. Help yourself. Mugs are in the cupboard.”

As Jud moved to get himself coffee, Delury stood up. “I’ll be in the other room, Chief.” He picked up his coffee mug and put it into the sink, then left.

The mugs had cartoon characters on them: the Seven Dwarfs. Jud picked out a Grumpy and filled it with coffee before sitting down across from Ethel Ballard. The surface of the table was covered with red polka-dotted oilcloth and its cheerful color seemed out of place under the circumstances. It was warm in the kitchen and Jud unzipped his jacket and put his cap down on a nearby chair. He looked over at her, trying to gauge her emotional state but not succeeding. It could be that she was actually this tough, but it could also be that she was simply numb from shock. “You have any warning this was coming?”

“No. You ask me, it was a dumb damn thing to do. We were going to get out of here, you know. Sell the house and move to Jacksonville. Art’s got a cousin lives down there.”

“Why do you think he did it?”

She fixed him with a steady gaze. “I don’t know. He didn’t have any troubles. Not big ones, anyway. If he did I would have known about them.”

“He was pretty upset, wasn’t he, by the Dickens girl’s death?”

“Oh, yes. We all were. But for Art it was a lot worse.”

“Why was that?”

Her small eyes were like bits of blue china. They gleamed as she spoke. “Because he saw the headsman.”

“You believe that, Ethel?”

“Believe it? Of course I believe it. He told me about it. Saw him plain as day. So maybe he was afraid. But he didn’t have no reason to be.”

“Why is that?”

“Because Art was harmless, that’s why. Never hurt nobody. Worked all his life in Swanson’s Hardware, let Bill Swanson walk all over him. Just the same way Bill’s father did when he was alive and running the place. They do that to you, you know.”

“Who does what?”

“All of ’em. They treat you like dirt. Not just the Swansons, either. The whole crowd that runs this town. It’s like they own it, and the rest of us just work for them. But Art never caused no trouble, not to them or anybody else. Whatever they dished out, he took it.”

She drank some of her coffee. “One time he went two years without a raise. He knew the store was making money, too, both of them years. But you think he had the guts to tell Bill Swanson he should get a little jump in his lousy salary? Not Art.”

“Why was he afraid of having seen the headsman?”

“I don’t know. I told you he didn’t have no reason to be. The headsman, he only kills people who’ve done something bad. Somebody who’s committed a mortal sin.”

“You think that’s what Marcy did?”

The blue-china eyes narrowed. “Could be.”

Jud wondered if the old lady might know something of value. “Did you see much of Marcy?”

“Enough. Watched her grow up from a baby. She was a nice kid until she got mixed up with that bunch at the high school.”

“What happened to her after that?”

“’Bout what you’d expect. She got into dope and sex, staying out all hours of the night. And those parents of hers let her get away with it, too. Let her do just about anything she pleased. It’s what comes of having too much money, thinking you’re better’n everybody else.”

“She was seeing the Harper boy, did you know that?”

“’Course I knew it.”

“Was there anybody else?”

“Not since last year. Buddy and her, they was together all the time.”

“You said Art told you about seeing the headsman. What did he tell you about it?”

She fiddled with the handle of her coffee mug. “Art was up that night. He had a bad back, and a lot of times it kept him awake. Friday night, sometime around one o’clock, he got up and went downstairs. He was gonna read or maybe watch TV in the living room. Before he turned the lights on, he looked out the window and saw him.”

“What did he see, exactly?”

“It was clear that night, and there was a moon. Art said he looked down the road toward the Dickens house, and when he did he saw a man come out the front door. There was a light someplace downstairs in the house, and when the man walked past the window Art got a look at him. He said it was a big man, dressed all in black with a hood on his head and carrying an ax. It was the headsman, no doubt about it.”

“And then what?”

“And then nothing. The headsman was gone, and Art didn’t see him again after that. Art stayed up until it got light out. Then he come back to bed.”

“Why didn’t he call the police?”

A faint smile crossed her face. “Can you picture that? Hello, Officer, I just saw the headsman running around outside. They would’ve said he was ready for the looney bin.”

She had a point. “Did he tell you what he’d seen?”

“No, I was still asleep. Later on he did, after Helen Dickens found Marcy’s body. He said he told you, too.”

Jud was about to explain that he hadn’t taken Art literally that morning, but she already knew that. Saying anything more about it would only make him look more foolish. “After that did he bring it up again?”

“Oh, yeah. Couple times. He said he wondered who was next.”

“He tell anybody else?”

“I don’t know. Don’t think so, but I could be wrong. Art wasn’t a big mouth, though. Wouldn’t be like him to go around blabbing. And like I said, I think he was afraid, even though he didn’t have no reason to be. He was just poor old dumb Art Ballard.” Suddenly the blue eyes filled with tears.

Jud felt awkward and helpless. There was nothing he could say or do at this point to make her feel any better; only the passage of days and weeks and months would ease the pain, and even then much of it would stay with her.
Time heals all wounds
. But does it?

He got up and patted her shoulder. Then he picked up his cap and went back into the living room.

The ambulance crew had removed the body, but what remained behind was a godawful mess. The floor was covered with blood, and the wall looked as if somebody had heaved a bucket of gore at it. Bits of tissue and hair and other human detritus were stuck to it, and the surface was pocked from birdshot.

Doc Reinholtz said it was a simple case of suicide; he’d have a report out later that day. And there would be no autopsy; he told the ambulance crew to take Ballard’s corpse to the Garavel funeral home. And that was about it. He left the room, going into the kitchen to offer Ethel Ballard what comfort he could.

Jud then told Delury to give him a hand, saying they’d do what they could to clean up the room. It was against regulations for cops to be doing that kind of thing, but Jud didn’t give a damn. He didn’t want Ethel Ballard to have to do it, and he didn’t want her to have to tell somebody else to, either. He and Delury found a broom closet in the back hall with a bucket and rags in it, and they worked on the wall and the floor for a good hour. When they finished the marks in the plaster were still there, as were some of the stains on the floor, but altogether it was better than it had been.

When he left the house Jud thought about his discussion earlier that night with Sally. Did the headsman really exist? To anybody with any sense, that was ridiculous.

And yet Art Ballard had seen him.

5

Jud figured there were two possible sources of information on Braddock’s history. One was the public library, the other was the museum. Both were run by the same man, a one-time Utica college professor named Paul Mulgrave. The reason Mulgrave was able to hold down two jobs at once was that each was a breeze. The library was a small, sleepy operation that discouraged its use by young people in a number of subtle ways, chiefly by not keeping an inventory of items they’d be interested in, such as record albums and videocassettes, which libraries now offered routinely. Instead, it catered to older citizens, who found it a pleasant place to pass the time reading and dozing at its long wooden tables. And the museum was open only occasionally. Since both the library and museum depended principally on public financing from the town’s coffers, it wouldn’t do much good to complain about the shortcomings of either one. It was expensive to run such things, you’d be told, and Braddock’s finance committee was not noted for throwing money around.

Jud parked in front of the library and went inside. It was a one-story red brick building, apparently of the same vintage as the town hall. The librarian at the desk was a thin, gray-haired woman who reminded him of a teacher he’d had as a kid: stern, foreboding and dried up. She peered at him through wire-rimmed glasses as he approached.

Her voice was appropriately quiet. “May I help you?”

He took off his cap and opened his jacket. “Afternoon, ma’am. I’d like to see Paul Mulgrave, if he’s around.”

She looked at the gold badge on his shirt. “I’ll see if Mr. Mulgrave is in. Who shall I say is calling?”

“My name is MacElroy. I’m the chief of police.”

Keeping her eyes on him, she lifted a telephone and spoke into it, her voice now even softer. When she put it down she said to Jud, “Mr. Mulgrave will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you.” Talk about formality. You’d think he was at the White House, trying for a visit with the president. He turned, holding his cap behind him, and looked around.

There weren’t more than a half-dozen people in the place, as far as he could see. One old guy was nodding off at one of the tables, and now and then he’d bite off the end of a snore and wake himself up. A woman was sitting at the same table, frowning at his antics. It would have been simple enough for her just to get up and move, but probably not as interesting. Instead she sat and glowered at the source of the noise.

A sign over one of the shelf sections said NEW FICTION. Jud stepped over and looked at the backs of the dust jackets. He thought he recognized a couple of the titles, but he wasn’t sure. Reading was an activity he both enjoyed and constantly promised himself he’d do more of, but somehow he never got around to it. What with his hours, all he seemed to want to do when he was home at night was watch the tube and play his guitar.

Another librarian came by, carrying an armload of books. This one looked even more spindly than the one at the desk. Jud watched as she put the books onto shelves, wondering why it was necessary to have these two women plus Mulgrave working here. Or not working here. There couldn’t be enough for one person to do, let alone three.

He heard a footstep behind him and turned to see Paul Mulgrave coming forward with his hand extended and a smile on his broad face. Mulgrave was a tall man with a full head of gray hair and an ample gut that his brown tweed jacket couldn’t quite hide. He spoke in a stage whisper. “Chief MacElroy. Nice to have you here. How can we be of service?”

Jud shook the hand. “Hello, Paul. There a place we can talk?”

“Of course. My office. Come this way.”

He followed Mulgrave to a door on one side of the main room. They went through the door and down a hallway, and now the man spoke in a normal tone. “Don’t think I’ve seen you for a while. You don’t get to the library very often, do you?”

“No, not often,” Jud said. “Just come in now and then to check on whether you’re hustling pornography.”

For an instant Mulgrave looked stunned, but then his face relaxed in a wide grin. “We have it all in a special cabinet. Same way the video rentals keep their X-rated tapes.”

It was a nice counter, he had to admit. There was only one video rental store in Braddock, and Jud had been trying to force the scumbag who ran it to get rid of his porno tapes, but without success. As long as he kept them separated from the rest of the stock and swore that he rented them only to people over eighteen years of age, there was no legal way to stop him from doing business in the stuff.